Evergage is thrilled to be included in The Forrester WaveTM: Experience Optimization Platforms, Q2 2018 report that was just published today. It is an honor to be included, of course, but it is even more gratifying to be ranked a “Strong Performer” — a testament, in our opinion, to our solution’s capabilities, position, and traction with enterprise customers across industries. Here’s a summary of my main takeaways from the report, but I encourage you to download the full report for additional information and context.

The Platform Approach

This report recognizes that companies are increasingly moving away from customer engagement tactics that rely on isolated point solutions. Instead, they’re looking for solutions that “optimize the experience of digital customer experiences across the entire digitally transformed life cycle of customer engagement.”

As our customers can attest, companies can achieve operational efficiencies and deliver more consistent customer experiences by using a single cohesive platform rather than stitching together loosely integrated point solutions.

Experience Optimization Criteria

There’s a lot that goes into delivering great customer experiences — from behavioral tracking, segmentation, and machine learning, to data source integration, multi-channel experience delivery, and analysis and attribution.

For the purposes of this report, however, Forrester focused on the following three capabilities: online testing, behavioral targeting, and recommendations. The analysts and their research team evaluated each participating vendor on these capabilities as well as a company’s strategy and market presence.

The Evaluation Process

For those not familiar with the Forrester Wave process, it’s an extensive evaluation that includes an initial survey, a lengthy questionnaire, an in-person demo, and a series of interviews with select customers. Needless-to-say, any vendor that is selected for inclusion in a Wave evaluation is required to invest a significant amount of time and resources.

Our experience as part of multiple Wave reports now has been very positive. Forrester’s approach is thorough, and the team does its best to account for many of the nuances and complexities that must be considered when comparing vendors. Each Wave is a significant undertaking.

Still, there’s always a degree of subjectivity with the Wave results. Forrester understands this and, provides a calculator (available once you log in) that allows businesses to adjust the Wave weightings to align with their own needs.

Evergage’s Take

For this Wave, in the “Current Offering” section of the research report, the analyst placed a higher emphasis on testing (40%), whereas behavioral targeting (30%) and recommendations (15%) – both critically important for delivering optimized customer experiences – were given much lower allocations. If you are an existing Forrester customer, we encourage you to use the calculator to adjust the weightings to see how the vendor landscape changes.

For example, we don’t disagree that testing is a critical capability of any Experience Optimization Platform, but we have an evolved perspective on testing as it applies to delivering personalized experiences. If you were to equal out the percentage allocations, for instance, Evergage’s “Current Offering” score in the Wave would be just shy (.025 points behind) of having the highest score in this report. And if you were to flip the weightings for testing and recommendations, Evergage’s “Current Offering” score would be the highest-rated solution overall.

It’s also worth noting that when looking at the expanded evaluation criteria, Evergage received the highest possible score (5.00) in the following nine criteria: test data use and management, campaign management for targeting, recommendations campaign management, data management for recommendations, recommendations techniques, enterprise appeal, platform integration, performance, and supporting services.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of how you weight the different criteria, we believe that Evergage is the most well-rounded, advanced and completely integrated solution among the vendors evaluated, and we’re proud to be named a Strong Performer by Forrester.